Next year it will be a decade since Gran Turismo revolutionised the driving game, but obsessive creator Kazunori Yamauchi will not be releasing another huge magnum opus to celebrate the milestone. Instead, his new game will feature just two tracks and a handful of cars.

Gran Turismo HD for PlayStation 3 will probably be priced at little more than the cost of a blank Blu-ray disc. Yet it will offer what many fans consider to be holy grails for the series that has sold over 30 million copies, including online multiplayer racing, Ferrari cars, improved artificial intelligence and possibly even crash damage.

HD will be a continually evolving product, the extremely meager offerings on the disc just a gateway to an online smorgasbord of 770 cars, 51 tracks and countless car parts that petrol hedonists can feast upon.

Grand Theft Auto bad boys Rockstar will publish one of the biggest games ever created in Australia.

L.A. Noire, currently in development at Team Bondi in Sydney, had previously been signed by Sony Computer Entertainment as a PlayStation 3 exclusive.

But it came as little surprise that Sony will now not be publishing the ambitious game, as it is well known among industry insiders that Team Bondi's CEO and Director of Development Brendan McNamara and Sony's President of Worldwide Studios Phil Harrison had an acrimonious falling out when they last worked together on The Getaway.

L.A. Noire is an interactive detective story set in the late 1940s, blending action, detection and deep storytelling as players try to solve a series of gruesome murders.

Games designer and outspoken critic of the commercial games industry, Greg Costikyan, has opened the doors to his Manifesto Games business.

The site is designed to offer the kind of quirky, offbeat and creative games that the conventional retail channel eschews.

Current offerings include free independent games like Cloud, low-priced titles from up-and-coming new studios, and commercially released titles now no longer on retail store shelves, like Dreamfall and Jagged Alliance 2.

"Manifesto Games is in part a wild-eyed, radical and utopian attempt to transform the game industry by recapturing the creative vigor, willingness to experiment, and exciting potential of its youth - and in part a sober, carefully planned ecommerce venture" says Costikyan.

Screen Play spent the day jostling with giant rats, samurai warriors, mutants, knights, elves and pixies. And got to play the occasional game, too.

Many attendees at the Tokyo Game Show dress as their favourite game characters. Known as Cosplay, fans construct incredibly elaborate and accurate costumes to celebrate their favourite past-time, then obligingly pose for countless photographs.

With so many game characters surrounding you, it is like entering into the confines of a video game.

Playing games at the show today was very difficult, as the queues to sample the most highly anticipated upcoming titles were over an hour long.

The PlayStation 3 was the star of the show on the first day of the Tokyo Game Show, with attendees clambering to get their hands on Sony's new machine for the first time.

The opening day of the show at Tokyo's enormous Makuhari Messe Exhibition Centre was limited to trade only, yet very long queues still formed to play many PlayStation 3 titles, including Gran Turismo HD, Warhawk, Devil May Cry 4, Ridge Racer 7, Virtua Fighter 5 and Resistance: Fall of Man.

Microsoft also had a very successful opening day, armed with a suite of impressive Xbox 360 games, an aggressive new Japanese price-tag and the surprise announcement of 1080p support via an upcoming software update.

Some of the best 360 exclusives included Hironobu Sakaguchi's stunning role playing game Blue Dragon, Viva Pinata, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, Lost Odyssey and Forza Motorsport 2.

Screen Play has been lucky enough to visit Japan many times, and despite memories of some truly frightening food and the world's craziest TV commercials, one thing always resonates: thank God for the Japanese.

"Japanese people have an insatiable appetite for anything new, liking very new technology and new approaches to games," says Masaya Matsuura, creator of Parappa the Rapper.

Ultimately we are all beneficiaries. Japanese videogame developers innovate and take risks, knowing the Japanese public's hunger for anything new. Whether it's afro-wearing toy dogs or crazy rhythm-action music games, if it's new, the average Japanese punter will happily pay plenty of Yen for it.

"Forgive me Miyamoto for I have sinned. It's been many years since my last confession..."

Today Screen Play thought it would be fun to get to know each other by revealing a few dirty little secrets.

You know the ones, like you actually enjoyed Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball even though you felt like a pervert, you think Castlevania and Final Fantasy are rubbish, and you can't resist honking your car horn as you drive around virtual worlds.

Screen Play will kick it off, but I look forward to hearing your guilty secrets...

Screen Play has been treated to an advance screening of the first episode of ABC2's Good Game, a new Australian television show "for gamers and by gamers".

After a string of lacklustre attempts at covering interactive entertainment on TV, Australian gamers have a right to be cynical about any new gaming shows, and question whether television networks will ever do justice to their favourite hobby.

But Good Game's first episode shows the series has terrific promise, with a healthy combination of irreverence and humour without sacrificing informative content.

Funded by the national broadcaster, Good Game avoids any problems with editorial independence and unsavoury commercial arrangements that have plagued other TV programs.

Zombies are perfect gaming fodder. Their humanity and relentlessness makes them frightening opponents, and violence can always be justified as players are liberating the hapless victims, allowing them to finally rest in peace.

Zombies also offer great comedic appeal, harnessed in last year's under-rated Stubbs the Zombie and also Dead Rising, which has just hit store shelves.

Resident Evil creators Capcom know more about the art of zombie games than most, and Dead Rising is another triumphant survival horror experience.

Players are dropped into a shopping mall teaming with literally thousands of lurching foes. Fortunately, there are countless tools to defend yourself, and a camera to document the drama.

Screen Play is something of a cricket tragic, and has often lamented the quality of most attempts to simulate the gentleman's game.

Although it's not Screen Play's customary behaviour, after the languid Cricket 2005 I even wrote a brief design document for Electronic Arts on how I thought they could best simulate the sport. A batting system using the analog stick was at the top of my wish list.

Now Screen Play has egg on its face after last week suggesting game developers should not listen to the fans, because EA has actually listened and incorporated analog batting in Cricket 07, out in November on PS2 and PC.

Lego Star Wars II has hit store shelves, and will undoubtedly be another multi-million seller.

While seemingly irreverent spoofs, the two Lego games are actually affectionate tributes to the Star Wars films. They're so charming that even the Ewoks and Jar Jar prove irresistible.

But now that all six Star Wars films have been parodied so marvelously by the blockheads, Screen Play wonders what other films could be fused with Lego magic?

There has been speculation of a Lego Batman game, while another classic trilogy from the Lucas stable, Indiana Jones, is an obvious and likely candidate. Raiding Lego tombs as the whip-cracking Dr Jones would be a worthy crusade.

Here are some other nominations for new Lego blockbusters, and Screen Play is keen to hear your suggestions...

Our small population ensures we often get consoles later than our American and Japanese counterparts, our strict censors ban games that can be enjoyed by adults all over the world, while our PAL TV system ensures we have often have to wait months for games to be translated into six different European languages.

Worse still, some games never get a local release for seemingly no good reason at all.

Today Screen Play wants to educate Aussies on what they are missing out on, and hopefully put some pressure on local distributors to do the right thing by their most loyal customers.

Following speculation in May that Apple was recruiting game developers to work on iPod, games have been added to the iTunes store.

Games designed specifically for the fifth-generation iPod, released today, include Bejeweled, Cubis 2, Mahjong, Mini Golf, Pac-Man, Tetris, Texas Hold 'em, Vortex and Zuma. The games cost $4.99 each to download.

No additional gaming buttons have been added to the minimalist design of the iPod, but the new models offer a "60-percent brighter" colour screen.

Apple has displayed little ambition to capitalise on the booming games market since their ill-fated Bandai collaboration called Pippin, a multimedia game machine using Macintosh technology released in 1996.

A Women in Games conference is being held in Seattle this week and will explore topics like how to encourage more women into game development, and also examine "quality of life" issues that are the key to retaining female staff.

Nintendo's Australian office finally has some Wii consoles, so Screen Play made the trek to Scoresby on Friday to get some quality time with the radical new beast.

Games sampled included Wii Sports, WarioWare: Smooth Moves and technical demonstrations like a Duck Hunt-style shooting gallery and a musical conducting game.

All of the games were controlled with the Wii-mote, but Nintendo did have prototypes of the Nunchuk and the SNES-style controller for playing retro downloads.

There has been speculation that Nintendo will push the release of the Wii in Australia and Europe to 2007 following PlayStation 3's delay, but Nintendo Australia are very confident of a pre-Christmas Wii launch. They promise price and date will be announced within the next fortnight.

Astute marketing has been a cornerstone of PlayStation's success. Over the past decade, Sony has regularly produced edgy campaigns tapping into the zeitgeist.

Sony's "get on board" Mountain advertisement is a recent award-winning classic, while the astonishing Double Life range of TV commercials from 1999, which showed ordinary people talking about their extraordinary virtual lives, remains the finest gaming campaign ever, seizing upon the emotional possibilities of the interactive realm.

But the task of selling PlayStation 3 in Australia is getting more difficult every day after a series of PR disasters.

Sony's E3 press conference contained many embarrassing gaffes, previously announced features were cut from the machine, Sony underestimated the fallout from criticism of the machine's high price, and now production problems have forced the delay of the console's release in Australia and Europe from November to March.

Australian game developers have a terrific reputation around the world for being highly skilled, creative and hard working.

While our industry is relatively small, for over 25 years Aussies have been punching above their weight in the global games industry, producing quality games often with budgets only a small fraction of what overseas teams enjoy.

To coincide with today's Livewire feature about the challenges facing the Australian game development community, Screen Play celebrates the local industry's achievements with a list of the Top 10 Australian games ever made.

It's not easy comparing today's games with yesteryear classics, but Screen Play is keen to hear your suggestions for your favourite home-grown heroes.

The launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 has been delayed in Australia and Europe until March 2007.

Release dates for Japan and North America will remain the same - November 11 and 17 respectively.

Sony says the move is due to a delay in the mass production schedule of the blue laser diode - a key component of the PS3's Blu-ray disc drive.

The delay will be a bitter blow to Sony's chances of continuing its domination of the gaming market. Microsoft's Xbox 360 has been available in Australia since March, and Nintendo is expected to release its innovative Wii console before Christmas.

Sony has revealed the Australian track list for the upcoming SingStar Legends, and it's by far the best line-up yet.

You'll be able to sing tracks from Midnight Oil, David Bowie, Elvis, Jimmy Barnes, John Farnham, John Lennon, Johnny Cash, Madonna, Nirvana, Silverchair, The Angels, The Easybeats, The Jackson 5, The Police, U2 and more.

Until now, each SingStar compilation had its share of baffling inclusions (Steps, anyone?) but every Legends track should prove a party favourite.

Check out the list of tracks below, and start warming up your vocal chords for the game's early November release.

Games are now the product of enormous teams of designers, artists and programmers, but the best games are often the product of a single gifted visionary.

"Game Gods" like Will Wright, Shigeru Miyamoto, Peter Molyneux and Hideo Kojima will be the first to say their games are great because of the skill and expertise of their teams, and that their colleagues contributed many great ideas into the mixing bowl during development.

But the importance of a single creative visionary who can come up with a bold new idea and steer the project through its many trials and tribulations during development is only growing as team sizes drastically increase.

At last week's THQ Loaded event, Screen Play chatted to the Executive Producer of STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, a game with a very troubled development that has caused its release date to be pushed back many times over the last few years.

After a dreadfully quiet few months, September sees the release of highly anticipated games like LEGO Star Wars II, Just Cause, Dead Rising, Yakuza, Company of Heroes, Kingdom Hearts II and Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins.

Great to see The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald recently devote significant space to intelligently exploring game-related issues.

In addition to more alarmist pieces on game addiction, we've seen Chris Johnson write about online worlds as playgrounds for exploring identity, and on the weekend the old debate of games as art was given a pleasing local perspective.

Screen Play recently attended a lecture by Professor James Paul Gee, one of the world's most respected academics espousing the value of interactive games in education. Gee rejected Roger Ebert's criticism that games cannot be art, saying a player's actions might seem trivial, but create a unique story.

Gee believes it is people's trajectories and choices throughout a game that are important and what makes them "deeply pleasurable and empowering".

The PC format is the most welcoming for new games development talent, offering an inexpensive entry into the games industry and the opportunity to build a direct relationship with customers. Gems like Darwinia would not be able to reach an audience on any other format.

But what a shame the spirit of innovation is not apparent on retail shelves. The commercial PC games market is dominated by just three genres - first person shooters, real-time strategy games and Sim products.

Video games are the new pop. Australians now spend more money on shooters and sims than hip hop and punk rock. Debate the latest news and trends in interactive entertainment with award-winning games writer Jason Hill.

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